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Letter: Learning to cooperate in a contentious world

More of the same, Mr. Fletcher.
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More of the same, Mr. Fletcher. Your column of Oct. 28 does nothing to intelligently further the discussion on electoral reform. Instead of using reasoned argument and evidence, you rely on nasty rhetoric, and red herrings to distract voters from the very good reasons to vote for proportional representation. And why do you have access to approximately 39 Black Papers around the province when columnists with a different point of view do not?

Inflammatory language does nothing but exacerbates our differences. It stirs up strong emotions and simplifies complex issues into us (good), vs them (bad) with no understanding or empathy for the many viewpoints in between. It closes dialogue and builds fences.

Our current voting system does this as well. When only a few votes are needed to win a riding and one riding can win an election, a party need only appeal to a relatively few swing voters. This is easily done with mudslinging, nasty rhetoric and polarizing or wedge issues, enabled by social media and increasingly sophisticated technology. With 100 per cent of the power, a voter minority government does not have to listen to or work with the Opposition to create better and more long-lasting legislature.

This is not the case with any of the three proportional representation systems on the electoral reform ballot. Because 40 per cent of the vote = 40 per cent of the seats and a chance to share in power, parties and MLAs will have to learn to work together. We teach our children to listen to each other, to respect each other, to share and cooperate: “to play nice in the sandbox.” Why wouldn’t we want our politicians to do the same?

Sue Young